


storm clouds and smoke

by halfwheeze



Series: soulmates and stories [2]
Category: Descendants (Disney Movies)
Genre: F/F, M/M, Soulmate AU, Soulmates AU, slight au but fucked if it's explained
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-24
Updated: 2019-01-24
Packaged: 2019-10-15 08:57:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,069
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17525696
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/halfwheeze/pseuds/halfwheeze
Summary: Carlos had likely been on guard for most of his life. It wasn’t because he didn’t trust his mother (though he didn’t), or that he didn’t trust his peers (trusted those even less), but rather because of the mark that had marred his skin ever since his thirteenth birthday: I think the fuck not, you trick ass bitch.





	storm clouds and smoke

**Author's Note:**

> This one is half for me and half for Re, but I hope everyone else enjoys it!

Carlos had likely been on guard for most of his life. It wasn’t because he didn’t trust his mother (though he didn’t), or that he didn’t trust his peers (trusted those even less), but rather because of the mark that had marred his skin ever since his thirteenth birthday:  _ I think the fuck not, you trick ass bitch.  _

He could not even begin to fathom what he had done to warrant such a violent response. It was in three lines of broad sweeping handwriting going down his back from between his shoulder blades to the small of his back, huge and claiming. He had never even admitted to Evie how much he kinda liked the idea that his handwriting was out there somewhere, scrawling across someone’s something, laying a claim of his own. He didn’t know how to admit to wanting to know that someone belonged to him without sounding like his mother, and that was the one person he would have liked to never sound like in his life. 

He was on his way to meet Evie, anyway. Maybe he would find a way to explain it to her today. He had been formulating the sentences for months, attempting to get from point A to point B in someway that wasn’t a scientific formula for all the ways that he wasn’t his mother, but it never worked. Instead, he looked for a target whose pockets he could pick, just willing to find anything to distract himself. 

_ Well, there’s an easy mark,  _ he thought to himself as he set eyes on a tall boy, easily distracted as he leaned against a wall to talk to a pretty girl. Well, Carlos was pretty sure she was pretty. Girls had never really been his thing, which was one of the many reasons that he hoped it was a boy who walked the Isle with his handwriting (because he was so sure a handwriting like that had to come from the Isle, Evie, he was so sure of so many theories about both of their mates, but that wasn’t the point). He slipped nimble fingers into the back pocket of the boy before twisting past him, acting as if his closeness had just been a hazard of the compressed space of the marketplace. 

“Hey!” he heard called after him just before he broke into a sprint. It was a crate full of rotting apples that slowed him enough to get caught by the boy, and he cursed Evie’s mother even as it had nothing to do with her. The boy caught him around the shoulders and spun him til his back was against the wall, and Carlos gasped as he looked up. He could feel it. The pull. His back  _ ached.  _

“You can keep the wallet. It’s not mine anyway. I’m Jay,” the boy introduced, holding out a hand to introduce himself. Carlos laughed in what could be called a slightly nervous way and held his hand out in return, shaking Jay’s. His touch felt a bit like sparks, a bit like an entire fire, worming its way through Carlos. He felt warm for the first time in his life. 

“Carlos. I’m Carlos de Vil,” he introduced in return, already offering up his origin. His surname had chased away all but Evie when he was young, the crazy that came off of his mother like a bag of cats swaying all but the most loyal from his side. Even Diego stayed away when he could, but Jay just smiled, still so confident, so clear and so brazenly good looking. Jay extracted his hand from Carlos’s and slipped it up to Carlos’s shoulder, holding it as if they had all the familiarity of friends just from the get. Carlos found himself filled with butterflies instead of rage, but he raised his eyebrows anyway. 

“So, soulmate, where’s your mark?” Jay asked, just a bit of cockiness slipping onto his face. Carlos pushed him off and hauled his shirt off, completely used to nudity after a life of living without any concessions for modesty. He knew that people liked to stare at his scars, but he was so beyond the point of caring that his soulmate might as well know about those from the get as well. He turned and put his back to Jay, not even jumping when Jay’s fingers moved to trace it. There were two scars that zig-zagged over the mark, but they had faded where the mark hadn’t. Cruella had put them there when it had first come in. 

“Where’s yours?” Carlos asked as he put his shirt back on, cutting Jay off from touching the mark before turning to face the other boy. Jay looked mildly as if someone had struck him, but he rearranged his face into something respectable without too much of a wait time. He nodded once before bending down a little, hiking up the leg of his jeans as much as he could. Carlos could see just the edge of his handwriting where it started in the inside of Jay’s knee, and he blushed dark as he thought of the position they would have to be in for the marks to touch. Jay grinned in a way that would be suitable on a shark. 

“We might have to get a little comfortable with each other before we confirm marks. You okay with a long haul, Carlos?” Jay said, nonchalant, but there were two ways that Carlos could tell that Jay meant it as seriously as he could: the way that he looked so vulnerable, eyes boring into Carlos’s own, and the way that he said Carlos’s name, like he was testing it out for future use. Carlos pushed down the desire to kiss him; it was too soon, too fast and too much, all at once. Instead, he lifted his hand to stroke Jay’s face with his thumb, quick and entirely self-indulgent, though he was also fond of the way that it made Jay look like a program that wasn’t quite working - Jay.exe has stopped. 

“If you can catch me,” he replied, slipping beneath Jay’s arm easily and breaking into a run, laughing as he heard Jay break into curses and start off after him. He kept his pace relatively slow, enough that Jay had to work for it, but not fast enough that it seemed like Carlos didn’t  _ want  _ Jay to catch him. They were just outside the cafe where Carlos was supposed to meet Evie before Jay scooped him up in his arms, holding him up in the air easily. He carried him directly toward the cafe in a fit of laughter, and Carlos was laughing right along with him. Jay didn’t set him down until they were through the door. 

“Carried you over a threshold! Does that mean we’re married now?” Jay asked as he put Carlos down, throwing an arm around his shoulder and nuzzling his face into Carlos’s hair for a moment. Carlos gave a token protest by shoving at his chest, but only a little; it wasn’t as if he didn’t like Jay’s arm around him, after all. It was only then that Carlos noticed Evie looking at them, along with a girl who was distinctly not Evie. 

“Hey, Jay? What the whole fuck?” distinctly Not-Evie asked, raising her eyebrows at Jay in a way that seemed unnecessarily violent. Carlos hadn’t known that one could raise one’s eyebrows with a sense of violence. Jay was grinning as he led Carlos over to the table though, so Carlos found himself relaxing into Jay’s hold all over again. 

“Hey, Eves. Who’s your friend?” he interrupted not-Evie’s questioning, tilting his head at his best friend as he looked between the two of them. There was a sense of caution to him as he did so, being as he was more than willing to ditch Jay and this girl in the interest of his best friend’s safety. He could find Jay again later, after all. He still sat down when Jay brought a chair over for him, amicable to the way that Jay immediately put his arm back around Carlos’s shoulders. Carlos was good at math, he could sense a pattern coming. 

“My, uh, my soulmate,” Evie answered, and Carlos lit up. Evie had never wanted her soulmate, had never felt safe to want her, and Carlos was happy to see her happy with her soulmate now. 

“No shit?” Jay asked, but he was looking at not-Evie, all challenge and high tension, though some amusement showed in his expression. Carlos narrowed his eyes, this time aimed at his soulmate; Jay didn’t take his eyes off of his friend. Mal nodded once. “When?” 

“10:57. Minute after I walked in,” Mal bit out, and Evie exchanged a look with Carlos, who looked equally confused. Jay sprang out of his chair and whooped, pumping a fist in the air before he got back into his seat grinning, putting his arm back around Carlos’s shoulders comfortably.

“10:50! Ha! Fuck you!” Jay said giddily, pumping his free hand in the air once more. Now Evie and Carlos were both really confused.

“What the fuck?” Carlos asked, tilting his head at Jay with a confused smile, because even when Jay was being weird, he was still happy to have him here. 

“Me and Mal, uh, we had a bet? Or a competition, I guess? Whoever meets their soulmate first wins, you know?” Jay answered, rubbing at the back of his neck and not quite looking Carlos in the eye. Carlos burst into laughter despite himself, his hands flying up to his face to muffle some of the noise, and he noticed the tension in Jay’s arms, almost as if he wanted to stop Carlos from covering his face at all. When Carlos was done, Jay was looking at him as if he hung the moon, and Carlos didn’t know what to do with all of that overwhelming affection. 

“So… soulmates. Wanna go on a double date? I’m Jay, by the way,” Jay introduced himself to Evie after Carlos’s laughter had died down, though the fondness in Jay’s eyes hadn’t. A look was exchanged between Carlos’s best friend and her soulmate, quick and communicative, before Evie’s hand was extended to Jay. 

“I’m Evie. And yeah, I’d love to,” she replied, and Jay shook her hand steadily. Carlos thought that this was probably as many handshakes as he had ever seen on the Isle, all in one day. To complete it, he stuck his hand out to Mal. 

“I’m Carlos, seeing as my soulmate was raised in a barn,” he introduced, sending a smile over at Jay which his soulmate rolled his eyes at. 

“In a shop, but it’s not much different. I’m Mal,” Mal replied, shaking his hand. He nodded and settled back in his seat. 

“In a shop?” he asked Jay. He didn’t know who Jay’s parents were, even if Carlos had introduced with his own mother on the forefront, his soulmate hadn’t done the same. 

“Jafar’s. He’s my dad. Yeah,” Jay said, scrubbing his hand over the back of his neck in what seemed to be his default gesture for when he felt awkward. Carlos laughed again, though not as raucous as before. He saw Mal go on guard from the corner of his eye, but Evie put a hand on her wrist. 

“We could have met years ago! My mother buys from Jafar all the time, whenever he has furs!” he snorted, amused by the circumstances as much as anything else. Jay looked a little surprised before it morphed into something else, something a little more… predatory. He grinned in the sharp way and Carlos wondered exactly what he was willing to say in front of both of their best friends. 

“Well, I’m kinda glad we met after I got my own place. Based on where our soulmarks are…” he trailed off, and Carlos swatted him, light still with his amusement, in the chest. Evie and Mal both wore equal expressions of curiosity. 

“Where’s his?” they asked in unison before turning to each other. 

“Center of the back,” Evie offered, not even turning to Carlos for their silent consultation. Carlos, frankly, didn’t mind. 

“Inside of the knee,” Mal said in return. It took both of them a moment to realise the position the marks had to be in to touch. 

“Ew, ew, ew, ew, gross!” 

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt me @halfwheeze on tumblr!


End file.
